Parsons' MFA Students Are Heading to New York Fashion Week and Launching a Magazine With Help from a Big Name Glossy

Following a blowout celebration for their bachelor program’s senior class earlier this month, Parsons celebrated their MFA graduates on Monday in a raw space deep inside New York’s garment district. Each of the eighteen thesis collections on display were painstakingly detailed, some resembling pleated confections, and others jigsaw puzzles of reworked vintage--they were entirely unique.
“Imagine the best of the bachelors program and then give them two years with everything Parsons has to offer and everything New York has to offer. It’s an intense incubator for talent,” said Parson's dean of fashion, Simon Collins.

Following a blowout celebration for their bachelor program’s senior class earlier this month, Parsons celebrated their MFA graduates on Monday in a raw space deep inside New York’s garment district. Each of the eighteen thesis collections on display were painstakingly detailed, some resembling pleated confections, and others jigsaw puzzles of reworked vintage--they were entirely unique.

“Imagine the best of the bachelors program and then give them two years with everything Parsons has to offer and everything New York has to offer. It’s an intense incubator for talent,” said Parson's dean of fashion, Simon Collins. “We found the best we could from around the world and brought them here. It’s safe to say that fashion design has never before been studied at this level in this country.”

With well-known star-makers circling the floor (like former Barneys creative director, current Amazon fashion consultant Julie Gilhart and stylist Annabel Tollman), it was clear that Parsons wants to show off their talented students to the industry. “These students are advanced in their abilities and they want to bring it to a new dimension,” explained Donna Karan, who helped to establish the school’s MFA program.

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This isn’t the last you’ll hear of this Parsons class. “We are going to do a runway show in September as part of fashion week, so this is just a taste of what’s to come,” Collins said. “We’re also releasing an MFA-themed magazine mid-summer to announce what we’re up to.”

And even though Collins confirmed that the school has enlisted the help of some editorial allies (suspiciously, it seemed that Marie Claire’s entire editorial team was in attendance), Collins wouldn’t release specifics, “It’s too early to say right now, but it’s going to be special.”

Speaking of special, click through to see some examples of the MFA students' work.

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By most any fashion die-hard's standards, Louis Vuitton and Parsons are considered the best of the best in their respective fields. So when they partner up for a competition that promotes sustainability the results are bound to impress.
Already in its second year, the competition, "Reconstruction 2.0," asks Parsons students to create new garments around a particular theme using the Louis Vuitton archives. This year, students were challenged to create a garment out of Vuitton samples that embodied travel, an idea at the heart of the international Louis Vuitton brand. Six four-person teams were selected to compete.
"We were inundated with the most amazing projects and the most amazing ideas, as we knew we would be, and the difficulty was choosing the six teams to take part," says Simon Collins, Parsons Dean of Fashion. "We could've tripled the size of the competition."